GHOST NEWS 3

Anyone leafing through a paperback at Priestpopple Books might think someone is reading over their shoulder. For loud footsteps, slamming doors and glimpses of a shadowy figure are all part and parcel of running the Hexham book store for owner John Patterson.

And he has become so accustomed to living with a ghost that he even chased a customer who took it upon himself to try to perform an exorcism in John’s store. Now psychics, from a Darlington society are planning to spend the night in the shop to research the spooky goings-on.

The ghostly sightings have scared off many – including the estate agent who showed John around the property. “When I first asked the agent if she could show my wife and I around we were both struck by her reluctance to do so,” John said.

After five years of the premises standing empty John took over the tenancy in March 1998, and since the building was in a derelict state he lived there whilst renovating it. “My first inkling that something was not quite right was on my first night here,” John recalled. “It was exactly 1am when I was awoken by the sound of the front door slamming and heavy steps walking up the stairs. Then another door slammed shut and it was quiet. I actually thought that someone had a spare key and was dossing in one of the rooms. I searched the building, but not only did I not find anyone, I discovered that there was no upstairs door to slam.”

For the next three nights events repeated themselves, and John began to realise why the estate agent had been so reluctant to enter the building. “I was getting fed up with being woken every night so eventually I shouted for him to stop, and the nocturnal visits ceased.”

John got some peace and quiet, but not for long. “About a week later I woke up with the certainty that someone was standing by my bed. I glanced over my shoulder and I could see the vague outline of a man standing by my bedside. I was unable to move and it was very cold. When I glanced again he had gone.”

John eventually got the shop up and running and the regular hauntings became such a part of life for him that he stopped taking any notice of them. “There have been many instances of sounds and sightings; the sounds are always footsteps that are quite clear,” John said. “The sightings are of a man dressed in what I take to be working dress of the 18th or 19th century. It is not just me that experiences these sightings, my customers do as well, including one religious gentleman I found on his knees trying to exorcise the spirit. But it was him I chased because, as I told him, the ghost wasn’t doing me any harm.”

Four years ago, when the British Psychic Research Society held its annual conference at the Queen’s Hall, in Hexham, one of the member visited John. He said: “A woman asked me if I knew that my shop was inhabited by a spirit, and she seemed surprised when I said ‘yes’. She went on to tell me that it was the spirit of a man and, thankfully, he liked me.”

Over the years sightings of the ghost have become less frequent, but John is still visited by psychic researchers. John said: “My house ghost must have got used to me and my customers as sightings and sounds have been less frequent. As I have a room partly dedicated to mystical and New Age books I suppose I must attract customers that are in tune with the spirit world.“

Ghosts in Green Bay? You better believe it — at least according to the guy who co-wrote “The Wisconsin Guide to Haunted Locations.” The area is loaded with things that go bump in the night, said Chad Lewis, who will appear with two other paranormal investigators at the first Unexplained Conference in Green Bay this weekend. Authors Linda Godfrey and Richard Hendricks, who co-authored “Weird Wisconsin: Your Travel Guide to Wisconsin’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets” also will tell tales of spooky sightings in our own back yard.

Stories have circulated for years about the downtown YMCA at 235 N. Jefferson Ave. and a young man’s ghost who is said to haunt the upper floors, but have you heard about the strange goings-on at BrewBaker’s Pub at 209 N. Washington St., where no one wants to be the last worker to close the place at night?

Phil Kawula, part-owner and manager at BrewBaker’s said he’s never seen an apparition at the bar, but he gets monthly calls from others wondering if it’s true that the place is inhabited by a spirit. “It can be a creepy place to be late at night alone, without a doubt,” he said. “Everybody here feels that way. I tried to do some research on it,” said Kawula, adding that he hasn’t found any definitive documentation. BrewBaker’s shows up on Web sites as a spooky spot where people have said they hear footsteps or see lights flash on and off when no one’s supposed to be there. At this stage, though, Kawula is still a skeptic.

A few other haunted spots will be discussed at this weekend’s conference, too. An area on Velp Avenue is said to be frequented by leprechauns, while the old hospital at Heritage Hill State Historical Park get visits from a spirit of a bygone era. Vince Lombardi’s ghost supposedly keeps track of the team at Lambeau Field, although Packers’ historian Lee Remmel said he’s never heard such stories.

As for the YMCA’s ghost, associate center director, Amy Schaeuble, denied that there have been sightings.

The Unexplained Conference has drawn audiences of 200 to 300 people at each of its 20 stops around the state, and Lewis expects to see that many Saturday. “People keep e-mailing us from Green Bay,” he said. “There’s so much odd stuff going on here.” The presenters will offer information they have on local haunts “and let you look at all sides of the issues, then come to your own conclusions,” Lewis said.

The speakers all have careers outside their paranormal work. Lewis is a grant writer based in Eau Claire but as a psychology student studying why people believe in the paranormal, he got hooked on the subject. “Ten years later I’m left with more questions than answers,” he said.

Godfrey, a former reporter with a keen interest in werewolves in Wisconsin, is a full-time author in Elkhorn, and Hendricks is a legal researcher at a law firm in Madison.

Lewis said many of us have heard spooky tales about the places around us, and many have had otherworldly experiences. He said he believes that fear tinged with denial is what keeps more people from reporting personal stories involving the supernatural. At the conference, they can feel free to open up. “My favorite part (of the presentation) is when the people tell their stories. There are more than we could ever, ever investigate,” he said.

BARABOO, Wis. — While it will take a week or two to analyze their data, a group of paranormal investigators left the Old Baraboo Inn early Sunday morning convinced that something unusual is going on at the old building some believe is haunted.

Members of the Southern Wisconsin Paranormal Research Group traveled to Baraboo late Saturday night to check out the inn and left with work yet to do — checking out movement caught on tape and unusually high electromagnetic readings in certain areas of the building. "It could be natural," said founder Jennifer Lauer of the group's early findings. "But we can't explain it."

Lead investigator Rob Johnson, a 15-year veteran of paranormal research, said the group had been looking forward to the visit since Lauer first visited the inn a year ago and was not disappointed. The six-person group worked from about 10:30 p.m. until about 4 a.m., taking baseline readings and setting up cameras throughout the building.

An automated data collection system logged electromagnetic field readings, radiation, humidity and temperature into a laptop computer, checking for fluctuations. Johnson said the electromagnetic field detectors are the group's primary tool. "We use them to pick up spirits, and in our opinion, that is how they manifest — they have to get the energy from somewhere," Johnson said. "Emotions are made of energy, the base principle of energy." He described buildings as "batteries," where energy and emotion is somehow stored.

"My opinion is the majority of the spirits we deal with don't know they have died," Johnson said. "One of our biggest keys is dramatic events — untimely deaths." The Old Baraboo Inn is a perfect setting, Johnson said. "This was a brothel and a bar — there was all kinds of joy, laughter, sorrow, pain, death, and these give out a certain amount of energy a building will store up. Occasionally it will give out those little small jolts to let you know there is something here you have no control over."

Haunted inn?

Apparently they don't just serve spirits at the Old Baraboo Inn — they are part of the action. B.C. Farr bought the building on 135 Walnut St. in 1998 after it had fallen into disrepair after sitting vacant for 14 years after fire damage.

Built in 1864, the building previously served as a brewery/winery, tavern and brothel. A skeptic by nature, Farr said he did not know what to think when he began to notice strange happenings while remodeling the building. He hired a man to help him, and the two soon noticed lights would be on when they came in after they shut them off the night before. After several days, Farr finally let him in on what he had been thinking for months — the place was haunted. "Then he started telling me all this stuff that he saw going on but didn't want to tell anyone because he thought I'd think he was nuts," Farr chuckled. "That was kind of a relief."

The two are not the only ones who have seen, heard or felt something they could not explain during the last three years the inn has been open. Farr said he has lost several employees and tenants who rent the two apartments above the inn because of ghost complaints. Finally, he decided to contact paranormal researchers, to see if they could help figure out what was going on.

Don't call them "Ghostbusters"

The group is made up of people in a variety of fields who are genuinely interested in peeking into the unknown. "I'm a construction worker," Johnson said. "We've got a guy in pharmaceutical sales, one is a book publisher, one is an electrical engineer, one is a computer science whiz kid. We've got people from all over."

They have been all over the state and elsewhere, from Alcatraz to Gettysburg — even to Mansfield, Ohio to investigate the prison featured in "The Shawshank Redemption." He said real estate companies have called for their services. "In Illinois, disclosure laws state if the house is known to be haunted you've got to disclose that," Johnson said.

Johnson said he has learned not to judge when a story sounds like a tall tale, since one of his best sightings came at the house of a woman whose sanity he seriously doubted. "I got there that night and (an apparition) walked right through a wall at me, straight through four stalls with horses, and each time it got to a stall the horse reared up," Johnson said. "It looked like a person without legs, just gliding through… thick white, like a fog you couldn't see through."

One of the group's best cases was at the Mantino State Mental Hospital in Illinois, which was closed in 1984. "There is not a single stitch of power in the place, and the (EMT) meter all of a sudden is spiking, jumping 0 to 15," Johnson said. "Then we all hear in our ears — now this is rare — a nurse over a cracking, non-existent P.A., calling a doctor, almost plain as day. We researched his name and he was actually a doctor there."

He said hospitals, theaters, mental health care facilities, prisons, and people's homes tend to be the best places to find ghosts, not cemeteries or spooky old houses. "You can have the creepiest on-the-hill Gothic cathedral and I'll bet that place isn't haunted," Johnson said. "You go to a local trailer park to one of these little 20-footers, and there are probably more ghosts in there."

The researchers are not in it for the money — while they often travel hundreds of miles, they do not charge for their service. Johnson said the group bases its investigation around finding proof, not speculation. "If you get something with equipment, you start there, and hopefully someone gets something on film or video," Johnson said." It's always very quick, sometimes it's just two seconds, but unfortunately people think of movies like Poltergeist. Loved the movie, but pretty much a pile of crap."

Johnson said the group is used to taunts and sneers from disbelievers. "We don't have proton packs and traps — I don't have a particle ionizer on my back," Johnson chuckled. "I'm not coming in to find a ghost — I go in , collect the evidence and either prove or disprove it."

After several hours of investigation, Farr was impressed by the researchers' dedication and serious approach. "(Johnson) told me right off the bat, ‘My job is to disprove everything that is going on,' but at the end of the night he was shaking his head," Farr said. "He said he had trouble explaining anything."

Near-Death Experiences Are Attracting the Attention of Distinguished Researchers Red Nova News/ Daily Breeze {Posted 6/24/05}

When Deb Foster died in a San Diego hospital, she found herself on a stairway surrounded by cats and dogs and mesmerized by a celestial blue sky, the likes of which she had never seen on Earth.

When it was Mary Clare Schlesinger's turn, she hovered above her bed in the intensive-care unit, watching her husband and daughter react in shock and fathomless grief at the thought of her passing.

Beverly Brodsky said she went on a spectacular journey through a tunnel of intense light, a magic ride with angels and a shapeless God to a place of perfect knowledge, wisdom, truth and justice.

All three said the journeys on which they embarked while "clinically dead," a period of a few moments when their hearts stopped, transformed their lives and left them with no fear of death.

They are not alone.

Many patients -- a notable study says nearly one in five -- who are revived following cardiac arrest, report memories of their brief time at death's door. They undergo a lucid, often indelible experience, even though they were unconscious with flat brain scans during the moments in which their hearts were still.

The near-death experiences, or NDEs, described by the three San Diego patients contain many of these typically reported elements: An out-of-body experience; acute awareness; moving through a void or tunnel toward bright light; meeting deceased relatives; a life review; feelings of intense joy, profound peace -- a feeling so blissful they longed to remain; and seeing a point of no return.

Increased survival rates from faster responses to cardiac-arrest calls, extensive CPR training, development of portable defibrillators and other improved methods of resuscitation mean more people could be expected to have near-death experiences. Though it may sound like the stuff of supermarket tabloids or the latest New Age religion, NDEs are attracting the attention of distinguished practitioners who study the body and mind.

"Some may say this is the brain's survival mechanism, that there is a physical explanation," said Dr. Vivian Ellis, an obstetrician at Scripps Memorial Hospital who resuscitated Foster after assisting with her Caesarean section. "But I think there is definitely a spiritual aspect to this." Ellis has practiced obstetrics at Scripps for 15 years and said she has had several patients who reported NDEs to her. "Whatever happens, it is more than science," she said. "This raises fascinating questions about human consciousness, and about light and time."

Yet many physicians remain skeptical about near-death reports.

Dr. Robert Sarnoff, a pulmonologist who revived Schlesinger in February 2001, said that in 25 years of taking care of gravely ill patients, she was the only one who has reported an NDE. "It is not a big topic on my radar screen," Sarnoff said.

Other cardiologists and trauma specialists declined to even discuss the subject, as did doctors at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. Dr. Pim van Lommel said he often encounters this response from colleagues.

Van Lommel is a cardiologist in the Netherlands who led a 13- year study of the NDE phenomena. The results were published in 2001 in the British medical journal Lancet. "NDE is not a rare phenomenon," said van Lommel in an e-mail interview. Yet NDEs are, to many physicians, "an inexplicable phenomenon and hence an ignored result of survival in a critical medical situation." "Physicians must be open and must take the time to listen to patients without prejudice."

Dead for more than 3 minutes

After her baby was delivered Dec. 11, 2002, Foster was wheeled into a recovery room. As attendants moved her from gurney to bed, she suffered an amniotic-fluid embolism, a rare obstetric emergency in which amniotic fluid entered her bloodstream, passed into her lungs and caused cardiac arrest.

For more than three minutes, the then-42-year-old was clinically dead. Though unconscious, Foster says she had the most clear and profound experience of her life: "I left that room and went to a staircase that was going up into the sky. It was so high, up past the clouds. I am afraid of heights, but I had no fear, even though there were no railings," she said. "I could look off to the distance and see beautiful rolling hills. The sky was the most unimaginable color of blue that doesn't exist in this life. There is simply peace. No chaos. No pain; the most serene place you can imagine, a perfect moment in time."

Foster said she believed in God but questioned her faith and was uncertain about an afterlife before this experience. "Now there is no question in my mind; there is a God, there is a heaven."

Scientific analysis

Van Lommel noted that the effects of NDEs on patients "seem similar worldwide, across all cultures." He said he became interested after reading the book Return From Tomorrow by George Ritchie, an Army private who in 1943 was revived after "dying" from a bout of pneumonia. "I started to ask patients who had survived a cardiac arrest if they could remember something" from when they were unconscious, van Lommel said.

That led to a study of cardiac patients who had lapsed into unconsciousness because of anoxia (deficiency of oxygen) at 10 Dutch hospitals between 1988 and 1992. The patients ranged in age from 26 to 92; 75 percent were men. Most were interviewed within five days of being clinically dead. Of 344 patients, 62 -- or 18 percent -- remembered something of the time they were dead, van Lommel said. Two-thirds of those (41 patients) had a "core," or extremely vivid, NDE while the other 21 were determined to have had a superficial NDE, he said.

Dr. Ellis of Scripps said the fact that most resuscitated patients do not report NDEs may be likened to the fact that some people vividly remember dreams while others have no memory of them at all.

Surviving patients in van Lommel's study who reported NDEs were interviewed again at two- and eight-year intervals, and compared with a control group of patients who did not have the experience. Researchers were struck, van Lommel said, by how the NDE patients had been transformed. Nearly all had no fear of death, believed in an afterlife, and strongly believed that what was truly important in life was "love and compassion for oneself, for others and for nature."

More questions than answers

Researchers ranging from those with scientific degrees to devotees of the paranormal to practitioners of New Age religions agree that the phenomenon of near-death experiences raises more questions than can currently be answered. One is: If NDE is physiologically based, why doesn't every patient who recovers from cardiac arrest or coma report them? And if patients whose hearts and brain activity have stopped remember vivid experiences, what does that say about the origin of the conscious mind?

In 1970, when Beverly Brodsky was 20 and living in Venice, the motorcycle she was riding on was hit by a car driven by a drunken driver. Brodsky said she suffered severe head injuries and lacerations to her face. "They released me from the hospital with no pain medication. I was in agony."

Though raised in a Jewish family, Brodsky said she was an agnostic at the time. As she lay in bed, Brodsky said, she feared she would pass out from the pain. "I wanted to die. I remember praying: 'God, if you are there, take me.' With that prayer, I was lifted up out of my body. I had these terrible head injuries and pain, and I had been legally blind before. But suddenly my eyesight was perfect. On the ceiling was an angel in flowing white robes that glowed from within, like a lantern. I believe I was clinically dead at that point. He took my hand, and we flew out the window," Brodsky said. "I had no fear. We were over the ocean, and above us was this dark area. At the end of it was a pinpoint of light, brighter than anything I had ever seen. It was like a tunnel, and we went into the tunnel. It was a light that contained all things; everything that ever was or will be was in this light. There were no words, no form, no face, no structure. All communication happened telepathically. I thought, well this isn't the guy on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but this must be God."

Brodsky has three shelves of books about NDE in her home. She moderates a monthly meeting for those who have had such experiences and is active in national NDE groups. "I have never come to doubt my experience," she said. "I see it as a great gift from God. I'm honored I was allowed to remember."

Long relegated to the realm of the paranormal, NDE burst on the scene 30 years ago when Raymond Moody, an East Coast psychiatrist, published Life After Life, examining reports of near-death experiences -- a term Moody coined. It sold 10 million copies worldwide. Other books, articles and studies followed, including several by Kenneth Ring, now professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut and co-founder of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Ring studied thousands of NDE reports, including some by blind patients. He concluded that religious orientation was not a factor. An atheist was as likely to have one as someone devoutly religious, according to Ring, who retired from the NDE field in the late 1990s.

Regardless of their backgrounds, most patients were convinced they were in the presence of some supreme being and loving power, and had glimpsed a life yet to come. Ring, who concluded NDEs do not have the rambling, disconnected nature of hallucination, said patients who reported them came away with strong feelings of self-acceptance, a great concern for others and more appreciative of life -- more loving and more spiritual.

A will to return

Mary Clare Schlesinger, 56, is among the apparent minority who did not see religious overtones in the near-death experience. "I had an out-of-body experience. But I see it as part of life," she said.

Schlesinger suffered respiratory failure four years ago from complications due to post-polio syndrome and a severe virus. She was placed on life support and realized she was dying. "Time slowed down, enabling me to go through all of my life and consciously forgive everyone who had ever hurt me," she said. "Then it was easy to let go."

Schlesinger, who was raised Roman Catholic, said that from her perch in the hospital room, she looked down and clearly saw herself in bed and her husband and daughter at her bedside. "As soon as I saw Rebecca and Steve's faces, all the energy and strength available went into coming back," she said. "Survival was more about love. The love I have for life and the people I love and the love they have for me is very powerful."

Skeptics weigh in

NDEs can be explained by neurochemistry and are the result of brain states that occur due to a dying, demented or drugged brain, claims Robert Todd Carroll in The Skeptics Dictionary.

Carroll cites British researcher Susan Blackmore's conclusion that the feelings of extreme peacefulness -- almost universal among NDE reports -- are the result of endorphins released due to the extreme stress of the situation. "There are two basic hypotheses," said Paul Kurtz, a retired philosophy professor and founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. "One, something leaves the body, the spirit or soul, goes to another realm, returns and reports. Two, this is a physiological process that alters consciousness, triggers bright lights, tunnel vision, out-of-body experiences and the like. That latter makes much more sense to me."

Van Lommel concedes that "neurophysiological processes must play some part in NDE." And, he says, "NDE-like experiences have been reported after the use of drugs like ketamine, LSD or (psilocybin) mushrooms."

But the perception of light, sound flashes and recollections with drug use are more fragmented and far less panoramic than that of an NDE, he said. Most compelling to van Lommel and other NDE researchers is what the experience suggests about the nature of human consciousness.

"We finally should consider the possibility that death, like birth, may well be a mere passing from one state of consciousness to another," he said.

Speaker sheds light on world of spirits Louis DiPierto, The Times Herald {Posted 6/24/05}

CUBA — Paranormal Investigator Father Michael J. Rambacher kept the lights on while he spoke about paranormal activity during his presentation at the A.A. Arnold Community Center on Thursday afternoon.
Father Rambacher, who spoke to about 35 senior citizens, shared his stories of paranormal activity and events that have occurred during his studies.
Father Rambacher, who gives about 25 lectures a year, said he deals with all sorts of paranormal phenomenon, from exorcisms to individuals saying their house lights are mysteriously turning on. No matter what the case is, his goal is to help people.
“My work is with people, families, houses and land,” he said. “I go and get rid of the energy so families can live their lives, because I’ve seen families torn apart by this.”
Father Rambacher described energy as the presence of electricity from spirits. He said all humans contain electricity even after death. Today, technology, such as infrared cameras and magnetometers, can now detect this electromagnetic energy and thus give proof of some kind of spiritual presence, he said. He showed numerous photographs containing “orbs,” or bursts of electromagnetic energy, which are invisible to the eye.
One picture is the inside of a church in Gettysburg, Pa. In a line of church pews, the front pew is occupied by a lone shadow of a person, the outline of a head and shoulders darkened against the front, white wall.
He showed a video he made while studying “the woman in white,” a ghost that haunts Gettysburg, Pa. Using an infrared camera, he video taped a wooded area where the ghost is usually seen. In the black and white video, the wooded area is calm, then suddenly a white strip of light bends into view then vanishes. He replayed the video over and over while the audience gasped. The energy, he said, was moving anywhere from 800 to 1,200 miles per hour.
Father Rambacher believes that he has captured some sort of paranormal activity.
“You have to acknowledge it,” he said. “There’s no getting around it.”
Father Rambacher said he studied with St. Bonaventure University’s own Father Alphonsus Trabold for three years. Father Trabold, who died in April, was an expert on the paranormal.
“He was an incredible man,” Father Rambacher said, adding his experiences with Father Trabold were beneficial to his studies.
The Akron, Ohio, native’s interest in the paranormal began as a teenager, but at the time, he didn’t understand where the information on the subject was coming from.
During his time in the U.S. Air Force from 1966 to 1970, Father Rambacher was introduced to Project Bluebook, a government agency that studied UFOs.
“There was a lot of stuff on UFOs that the government didn’t want you to know about,” he said.
Like the time at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where Father Rambacher was stationed. One night, after he watched a fighter plane land, he saw a burst of orange and heard a fizzing sound. He said he thought the plane had exploded. Instead, what he saw was an orange ball 50 feet from the runway accelerating, then disappearing down a hill. A pair of F-4 Fighters took off immediately to chase the object. The planes never returned. Father Rambacher said the event happened 20 years to the day on the same hour as the Roswell incident in New Mexico in 1947.
“That made me all more convinced there is more to our existence than what we believe,” he said.
The UFO story involving Roswell in 1947 has remained one of the most talked about mysteries in U.S. history. Some believe that a UFO crashed in the small town and the case was then quickly covered up by the U.S. government. Others dismiss the story as just another tall tale.
Father Rambacher said not all paranormal experiences are as dramatic as his was at the air base.
“There are all sorts of manifestations,” he said. “Like a breeze blowing through a window, you may feel the electromagnetic energy.”
Father Rambacher predicts in the next two years, science and technology will prove that paranormal activity is real.
“There is valid proof that it exists,” he told the audience. “It hasn’t changed and will never change.”

"There's something about clown puppets," says John Zaffis, gazing warily at the large cheery-looking pair he keeps in a glass box in his Stratford basement. "I don't know why, but for some reason they do things," he says. "People who own clown puppets often find that strange things are happening around them."

Zaffis has several other possibly evil clown puppets in that basement, along with a few thousand other inanimate objects that just might be possessed — all part of his museum of the paranormal. Zaffis said he got many of the items in his collection from people who sought his services in probing unexplained activity happening around them. Once the source of the trouble was located, the owners asked Zaffis — sometimes begged him — to take the items away. "They want no part of them," he says, "so they give them to me. I've got more stuff out in my barn that's never been displayed."

So far, the puppets are being good.

Zaffis, a frequent guest on national radio shows and the lecture circuit who has probed the supernatural for almost 35 years, was scheduled to be among the featured speakers at a two-day conference on paranormal phenomena set for June 17 and 18 in Stratford. The event is sponsored by the Westport-based Smoking Gun Research Agency, an organization that researches and investigates unexplained happenings.

(The group is not associated with the popular Web site, www.thesmokinggun.com, which specializes in online publication of government and law-enforcement documents.)

"This is the seventh time we've held the conference," says Smoking Gun Research Agency founder and director John Nowinski of Westport, "but it's the first time we've stretched it over two days."

The ParaCon conference began Friday, June 17 at the Stratford Library with an 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule of book-signings and presentations by featured speakers, as well as other events. The June 18 schedule ran 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Ramada Inn, also in Stratford. In addition to Zaffis, whose topic was "Exorcisms and Possessed Possessions," speakers included author Jeff Belanger, a former state resident and founder of www.ghostvillage.com, a Web site that hosts online discussions about ghosts and other phenomena. Nick Roesler, of Madison, Wis., a specialist in UFO investigations, spoke on that topic. Diane Bajorinas, of Stratford, presented a program on funerary art and preservation of historic graveyards.

Nowinski actted as emcee and host of the conference, and will participate in most of the sessions. He expected attendance at the event to exceed 100 people. He says the conference was "intended to present the public with experts and evidence that supports the existence of various phenomena often considered fringe topics," such as ghost activity, UFOs and government coverups.

Over coffee at a Stratford restaurant Thursday, Bajorinas, a self-taught paranormal investigator, said she has been a member of Smoking Gun for four years. In that time, she has participated in many investigations of paranormal activity. She says the paranormal has fascinated her since she was a child.

"I always tended to feel things in inanimate objects," she said. "I'll pick up a rock at the site of an investigation and it will turn hot and cold in succession in my hand." She described a time when while stopping at a rural bookshop in Massachusetts — she became frightened as she approached the building. "I felt something very scary when I faced the woods," she says, "but the instant I put my foot in the door, I knew I should get out of there as fast a possible."

Old cemeteries, with their eerily beautiful gravestones and pithy epitaphs, have long interested her. Once, when the gates to the old cemetery behind the Stratford Library had been locked to prevent vandalism, she climbed the 6-foot fence that surrounded it so she could search for the grave of a woman who was hanged as a witch.

"She's not buried in there," Bajorinas says. "The best anyone can figure, her grave may be under I-95." For more information on the conference consult the Smoking Gun Research Agency's Web site: http://www.sgra-media.com.

Investigating ghostly goings on at RAF base Cambridge News UK {Posted 4/17/05}

Ghosts, spirits, and poltergeists haunt the narrow streets, crypts and alleyways of Chester in such numbers, according to new research, that paranormal experts are giving it the spine chilling title of ‘England’s most haunted city’.

The ancient walled city of Chester, in north-west Britain, was founded by the Romans some 2,000 years ago as one of the three main legionary fortresses controlling the province of Britannia. When the Romans left, the fortress was fought over by successive waves of Vikings, Danes and Welshmen.

Even today, Chester is a compact and picturesque place, full of Roman remains and black-and-white medieval houses and inns.

Over the centuries, Chester has witnessed every high and low of human existence: from joy and jubilation to slaughter, famine, plague and war. It's no surprise then, that Chester boasts ghosts, hauntings and apparitions from every age of Britain's history.

Chester’s Roman ghosts are among the earliest in Britain. The best known is the phantom legionary who paces between the Roman fortress walls and the nearby ruined amphitheatre. Although apparitions typically become fainter over the centuries, this spectre remains so clear that experts have identified him by his armour. He seems to be a Decurion (an officer in charge of ten men) of the Second Legion Adiutrix, stationed at Chester in the AD 70s.

Not far from Chester’s half excavated Roman amphitheatre are the atmospheric ruins of St John’s church and priory. Peer up through the skeletal arches here, and you’ll see the curious ‘coffin in the wall’. Written inside it are the ominous words ‘Dust to Dust’. A spectral nun in a ‘bluish habit’ haunts the abandoned churchyard; witty guides and locals say she was originally buried in the 13th century oak casket to be ‘closer to heaven’.

During the brutal English Civil War, loyalist Chester was besieged by parliamentarian troops between 1643-46. Tudor House, on Lower Bridge Street, is one of Chester’s oldest domestic buildings and is still haunted by the headless spectre of a Royalist gentleman who was cruelly decapitated by a stray cannon ball.

Chester has more than its fair share of haunted inns and pubs, too. Ye Olde Kings Head is haunted; objects move inexplicably or disappear in Room 4, and messages appear on the mirror in Room 6. The lovingly restored black-and-white Falcon Inn has a resident poltergeist, while a phantom sailor occasionally drifts through the medieval stone crypt of Watergates bar with a seaman’s typical rolling gait.

Chester is truly a city of ghosts. Dave Sadler, of Liverpool’s paranormal investigators Parascience, says ‘My belief is that Chester, for its size, has the most haunted activity in the country. Some say it's York or Derby, but I disagree. The amount of ghosts per street in Chester is phenomenal.’

For a growing catalogue of Chester’s ghosts, go online to http://www.hauntedchester.co.uk/. The well laid out, dedicated website explores Chester’s spooky past under headings such ‘Ghosts’, ‘Hauntings’ and ‘Poltergeists’ - and currently gives details of a hundred or so haunted locations in and around Chester. There’s also a lively forum where visitors can discuss all things spooky or bizarre.

The EVPs typically feature normal spaces between syllables, which may themselves be delivered at unusual speeds. In fact, there can sometimes be several speeds all within one word.

"I've even had spirits interact with me," Swain said, telling the story about carrying some heavy equipment out of the Hotel Lee. "I got spooked and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. So when I get spooked, I just talk to myself. But when I said 'Well you might as well help me move this' as I was going out the door, I recorded a young girl's voice saying 'Should I move?’ ”

Hot spots for EVPs in Yuma seem to be Prison Hill, old town in general and the old cemetery off First Avenue.

The popularity of EVP hunting has really taken off in recent years, but nothing could have rendered a bigger impact on it all than "White Noise." The current leaders of the American Association of EVP still can't believe it. "On the day of the movie's opening, the association's Web site had 88,000 hits," Tom Butler told More during a recent phone interview. "Universal Pictures wound up having to mirror our site just to keep up."

Tom and his wife, Lisa, are true glitterati in the world of EVP, by the way. They are authors of the popular book "There is No Death and There are No Dead." They've been quests on "The Maury Povich Show" and "Access Hollywood." The Butlers will also star in a special documentary on the "White Noise" DVD. Like Swain, the Nevada-based couple stresses that "White Noise" is a greatly entertaining movie that manages to sensationalize EVP hunting. But they still have a lot of positive things to say.

"One great thing is that the movie has given us the chance to set the record straight," Lisa said. "Even though it shows EVPs as scary, it's still getting the word to the public about this phenomena." Plus, lots of people are taking advantage of the association's site and learning from a wealth of resources how to take up EVPing on a serious level.

Overall the association has 400 paid members from coast to coast. But even though tapes are turning everywhere right there, there's still no single answer for exactly how this stuff works anyway. So far it seems that the best theory is that the spirits — or sometimes aliens or just folks hanging out in another dimension altogether — somehow place their messages onto the tape, rather than actually speaking in any way audible.
The Butlers offered their thoughts, stressing mainly that EVPs are not what most critics say — cell phone calls, radio broadcasts and such. "We're not just picking up some strange signals. We're not getting music and we're not getting disk jockeys," Tom quipped. "We're listening to people say our names or answer questions." Lisa added: "We haven't figured out how it works, but we feel that's not so important."

For them EVPs go far beyond a spooky game to play. To the Butlers these recordings are a powerful and most meaningful tool. "Most of the work we do with EVPs is with grieving," Lisa said. "The messages are usually short and something like ‘I'm OK.’ Personally, we've heard from Tom's mother and father and my grandmother."   Making that kind of connection across the gulf of death gives meaning to the Butler's work. "This is what we really care about," Lisa said.

And they also care about letting people know that EVP hunting truly isn't a deadly deed. In fact, their only warnings are to folks who use drugs or suffering from a mental illness.   "In the more than 50 years of EVP research around the world there is nothing more than the unusual EVP cussing at you or telling you to get out," Tom said. "They're just people on the other side and sometimes we get into their space and they don't like it." Lisa agreed, adding: "Listen, I'm much more scared about getting mugged by a human than a dead person."
The thought of a ghost taking form and actually trying something shady is probably the kind of tangible stuff Swain would pray for most nights trudging through the graveyard. "I just want to know the answers," he said. "Actually I'm a pretty strange ghost hunter because I'm not sure I absolutely believe in ghosts. But I do feel that the messages are coming from somewhere."

In addition to his own hunts, Swain also investigates local hauntings for folks having troubles with strange occurrences in their homes or businesses. "When you tell people 'I'm a ghost hunter,' there is always a shock factor and that's fun," he said. "But the part that's actually a good feeling is when you have come call and you're able to sit them down, counsel them and help them through it. It feels good to finally be the one to tell them they're really not crazy."

To make sure that there really isn't anything there, Swain records audio using two machines. He has an impressive gadget that measures sudden temperature changes, he takes radio wave readings and he records visuals using both a regular camera and an infrared camera. To find areas of supernatural disturbance where a spirit might be, Swain is led there by his wife, Susie, who is quite an expert with divining rods.

Swain said that "99 percent of the time" he can come up with a disappointingly logical explanation behind most hauntings. But there is still that one percent. "I've been sitting next to chairs that have moved and I've been slapped when there's nobody there," he said, adding it still takes more than that to completely unnerve him. In fact, he's been chasing spooks since 1983, back when he was with Nebraska Paranormal Investigations. "It doesn't bother me anymore. But of course I've been ghost hunting longer than most of these young people have."

Swain is right about young people. There are lots of new EVP hunters hatching left and right there days.
Kellie Taylor is one of the them. Taylor, a Yuman in her early 20s, has been communicating with the great beyond for a couple years now.

"I've always just been interested in spooky things," Taylor said. "I just like the mystery of it. I think I try to take a scientific approach to it, though. Like anything else, matter cannot be destroyed, only changed. So when we die, our energy takes another form." Taylor's first EVP, curiously enough, is still her favorite and her best recording to date. She was hanging out with a friend who wanted a test in her home. The results led not only to surprise and disbelief, but tears as well. It turned out that the friend's brother and mother both spoke on the tape that night.

"We heard him saying 'I can see you' and he used the name of the person," Taylor said. "Then the mother came through and said 'Head on straight.' When I was reviewing the material with my friend and asked if that meant anything to her, she said that was what her mother had always said to her brother." To the friend, it was a meaningful moment. To Taylor the successful recording was a ghostly stamp of approval for her new hobby. "I wouldn't say it was scary. It was just exciting, kind of that 'Eureka! I've found it!' kind of feeling," she said.

Taylor does her recordings in the usual spooky spots around Yuma, but she is also listens around her own home and friends’ homes, too. Although she may not call it her best, another recording success just might be most people's favorites. That's the time Taylor managed to record sounds that were clearly from a music box. The song was crisp, clear and she could follow along with the tune — although she didn't recognize the song.

Like Swain, Taylor is pretty brave when she's crisscrossing through the tombstones. "I've heard them say 'Come here' and 'Leave me alone,’ ” she said. "I've heard growling, I've heard my name called and they've actually given me directions when I was lost: 'Stay on the left!’ ”

Like most of her EVP comrades Taylor hasn't actually seen much of anything out of sorts. "Just one time I saw this cloud, this misty, floaty form that was low lying to the ground," she said.

Taylor laughed at the thought of EVP hunting being anything close to dangerous. Heck, the only harm that it's seemed to have in her life has come in the form of incredulous ribbing from friends and family.
"My parents think I'm freaking weird and most people like to tease until I show them proof or take them with me," she said. "For me I've just learned that life continues in some form and contact with that side is available to us. That's just exciting to me. It's comforting."

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Investigating ghostly goings on at RAF base Cambridge News UK {Posted 4/17/05}